After The Rain Has Gone
by patchworkdove
Summary: [Post Advent Children] Yazoo and Loz survived Cloud's attack, but how much longer will their luck last without Kadaj and Mother there to guide them?
1. Acid Rain

Yazoo was consumed by the fiery, intense pain flaring through his veins. His body was battered and beaten, his clothes torn and that rain came down. That vile, toxic, corrosive rain. It burned like acid on his skin, searing his flesh and melting his bones, threatening to wash his soul away like nothing more insubstantial and fleeting than a childish chalk drawing on the street. His blood was boiling and his heart was breaking. His family was gone… destroyed from within by one of their own. The agony he felt in his heart was far greater than that which afflicted his physical being, it went far deeper than any sword-wound could ever penetrate. Deep in his core he knew he was alone. They had always been alone, he would always be so alone and now there was nothing left but for him to die alone on the cold, wet concrete. He was scorned and hated by his Big Brother. His own brother wanted them all to die. Sephiroth was known as The Nightmare, but to Yazoo, no one could compare to the horror that was Cloud.

Loz's cries had died away. Kedaj had fallen in the rain. Sephiroth was gone. Mother was… she couldn't be… dead, but she was gone. They had found her and he had been so close to being by her side at last, but he had lost his mother all over again.

All because their Big Brother hated them so. He was so cruel. The world was so cruel, Rufus Shinra and his Turks, Cloud and his new family… why did they care so much about depriving three lost boys from the love of their mother, the only one who would ever really care?

Cloud had ruined their Family Reunion and turned it into a bloodbath.

Yazoo whimpered, tears rolling from his burning eyes. He could no longer understand anything, it was all a chaotic, senseless blur of pain and hurt. It didn't make sense, why and how could all this happen? How could it go so wrong?

With the last of his failing strength he howled a mournful, chilling wail of complete loneliness and despair. The poison water from the heavens poured down his throat, scalding his lips and tongue to choke his voice and break his cries.

As he lost his thoughts beneath the smothering waves of pain and anguish, one last word escaped his lips. A childlike plea for "…mother…"

-o-o-O-o-o-


	2. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Loz was roused from his own catatonic state by Yazoo's piercing cry of distress. The sound penetrated his pain-dulled senses and his waning consciousness. It stirred the strong, fundamental instinct in him to protect his family and despite his own injuries he was stirred into action.

Squinting against the corrosive rain that curdled his skin, he searched for Yazoo. His eyesight was blurred and each time he tried to focus on an image his vision tunnelled, swam and spun. He rolled on his side, battling against his broken body to go to his brother's aid. Staggering to his feet he held himself up by grasping a twist of steel jutting from a broken beam of reinforced-concrete rubble, his free hand clutched to his bleeding stomach.

"Yazoo?" he called into the rank, misty rain, panting against his bruised ribs. He hobbled amongst the ruins of the old ShinRa building, keeping away from the open ground which offered no handholds to steady himself or cover from the thunderous roar of the airship engines overhead. Loz searched for his missing brother though he could barely walk, hardly see and unsure of whether he had imagined Yazoo's bleak cry.

By some miracle he found Yazoo. His brother lay spread-eagled where he'd fallen, bright red blood wrongly bringing colour his long silver hair. Where Yazoo's clothes did not protect him, the rain was scalding his pale skin an angry red. Tendrils of black smoke climbed out and up from under his clothes while a dark haze boiled around his right forearm, glowing spheres of materia fleeing Yazoo's dieing form.

"Brother!"

Loz didn't have a plan. He didn't have Sephiroth's cunning ambition or intellegence, he had Sephiroth's physical strength. It was Kadaj who gave orders, turned Mother's ideas into plans, plotted, schemed and led the way. Yazoo was the smart one, he could forsee problems, predict trouble and offer foolproof methods towards the search for their Mother. Loz felt he was just there to do as he was instructed, but now no-on was left to guide him. He had been left in the rain with his brother dieing at his feet.

"Yazoo?" he gripped one of his smaller brother's slender shoulders and shook him, trying to wake him and bring some life back into his unresponsive body. "Brother! Wake up! Don't leave me on my own, I don't know what to do on my own." He had been gritting his teeth against his tears but now he surrendered to the prickling in his eyes and the broken sobs waiting in his throat. He knelt over Yazoo, gently holding his jaw as if it might help him hear the desperation in his brother's tone. "Yazoo, please wake up, I don't want you to leave me alone!"

There was nothing. Not a murmur, flutter of an eyelash or a twitch of his lips. Loz placed a thumb on Yazoo's unconscious eyelid with all the tender gentleness he could muster to open his brother's eye. Beneath there should have been an electric blue and acid green eye with a piercingly thin pupil gleaming bright from the fast and active mind behind them, but instead Yazoo's eye was dull, still and dilated. His pupil was a blank, swollen oval which had swallowed up almost every last speck of colour. Yazoo's eyes looked dead.

Loz crumbled, dropping his forehead to Yazoo's unmoving chest and bawling uncontrollably into the wet leather. There was nothing left he could do but let the rain fall and wait.

A sudden chinking sound gained Loz's attention. He rose to see his own skin belching black streamers of smoke. He watched in horror as bright globes of materia bubbled out of his forearms and fell away, chiming as they bounced on the hard, wet ground. As he looked at the accumulated scattering of shimmering, multicoloured spheres lying around him, he had an idea.

Frantically he rummaged through the pale green magic orbs, searching for Yazoo's Restore materia. If he could find Yazoo's Magic Plus amongst the purples and the MP Turbo amid the blues, they would help too.

Loz was a physical fighter and made a pitiful mage, he had low magic, little MP and even less experience, but he had to try. There was a chance that Yazoo wasn't quite dead yet.

Holding the three spheres in one hand, he readied himself for equipping them. He shook his left arm out and flexed his muscles, trying to up the blood flow like a junkie preparing for a fix. It was going to be a struggle to force a body that had ejected materia only a few moments ago to accept these three new spheres in one go, he was already quivering with exhaustion and teetering on the brink of passing into unconsciousness.

At first the materia began to sink in with regular ease, but all too soon Loz's efforts met with resistance. The harder he pushed, the harder his body repelled the materia. It was like trying to force the wrong poles of two very strong magnets together, only it wrenched painfully at his flesh. Gritting his teeth, bracing against the ground and heaving with all his remaining strength, he pushed them home but kept his hand clamped firmly over the throbbing area. He had to make this quick, they wouldn't stay in long.

He only succeeded in casting two rounds of Cure before he could no-longer hold them in deep enough. Two cascades of glittering, resonating, restorative magic was all he could muster. It was pitiful, but it would have to be enough.

The poisonous torrent of rain was still falling thick and fast, sapping Loz's precious little remaining strength. The tears and holes in his leather clothes admitted so much burning water that he may as well have been wearing a cotton shirt. He had to find shelter.

He gathered up his brother, struggling under the meagre weight of Yazoo's modest frame. His boots scattered the materia littering the ground as he trudged towards a gaping crevice in the rubble of the ruined building. Deeper and deeper he went, carefully picking his way through the darkness that concealed treacherously sharp twists of steel, broken glass and uneven ground as he sought out a dry, secluded den in which he could provide a safe refuge away from the outside world from himself and his brother.

Loz pressed on until he found a small chamber of concrete which would suffice. He carefully unzipped Yazoo's long leather coat and disrobed him first, flinging the searing, sodden clothes in a heap well away from them both. He tenderly wrung out as much water from Yazoo's trailing, blood-stained silver hair as he dare, caringly mindful of avoiding uncomfortable sharp tugs at his roots. With Yazoo relieved of the burning water, Loz tore off his own clothes to rid himself of the incessant stinging they brought.

He shivered in the dark, still damp and longing to be dry again. His adrenaline rush was subsiding now, and with its waning came the true pain of his injuries. Sniffing back tears, Loz eased himself into a vaguely comfortable position among the chunks of concrete and plaster, pulling Yazoo's limp body on top of himself to keep him up off the cold, hard floor. As Loz waited for sleep to claim him, he affectionately groomed Yazoo's tragically ruined locks, working out the knots and spreading it out to dry.

-o-o-O-o-o-


	3. Precious Bravery And Stupidity

Yazoo fluttered into conciousness so gradually that he couldn't recall waking. It added to the confusion that the deepness of the darkness brought. This place was blacker than night, not a scrap of light to be found, not a single photon to trip his inhumanly sensitive retinas. He and his brothers all had the night vision of an Ark Dragon, but this place was truly dark. It felt enclosed and strangely peaceful for an unknown space, the air was humid and damp and smelled comforting. He was wrapped in an invitingly restful warmth which soothed him and beckoned his mind to return to sleep. It was like the rearing tubes he had developed inside of before he had known the pain of the outside world.

The smell was so familiar, one he had sensed every day of his short life. It was the smell of likeness, of shared goals, thoughts and blood. It was the smell of Mother's family, but it wasn't Yazoo's own scent. It was subtly different. Stronger, more masculine and muskier. It smelled like Loz.

Yazoo's long, slender fingers sought feather-light touches in the dark like the feelers of a blind cave creature, building up amental mapof his surroundings, but he quickly met with flesh that wasn't his own. Soft skin on a hard, toned body and Yazoo's face began to crease into a hopeful smile as he began to remember the blood-drenched Reunion and doubt his loneliness. He found his brother's head and could feel Loz's gentle breath on the back of his hand. Yazoo ghosted over Loz's features as if he daren't believe it really was his brother, tracing that strong nose, heavy brow and short, coarse mane.

Loz began to stir, and Yazoo's eyes welled up with an aching relief at his brother's evident survival.

"Loz?" Yazoo found his voice and cringed at how loud a whisper echoed in this hard-walled place. "You're alive?" It was a stupid question, but he couldn't help himself.

After a moment of what Yazoo presumed to be an equal measure of shock, surprise and disbelief on Loz's part, everything came at once.

A tightening of Loz's embrace with his incredible strength reigned in as if he feared he would break his brother if he didn't moderate himself. Strings of words tumbled out without much thought behind structuring sentences and Loz began to cry.

"Shh Loz" he cooed through his own thick emotion "it's going to be ok, we're alive." Yazoo knew it wouldn't stem the tide, he just wanted to say some words of comfort for his teary brother.

"But Yazoo, I thought you wouldn't make it. I thought you'd die. I was frightened you'd die too and I'd be left all alone." Loz buried his face into the long, silken hair draped over Yazoo's shoulder.

Yazoo soothingly stroked the back of his bigger brother's head and neck, patiently listening to him and for once revelling in the sound of his sobbing. Loz was alive. "Hush now my brother, don't cry."

"I'm not crying." Loz protested half-heartedly.

"Its alright brother. I am too."

They both cried in the dark for what felt like an eternity, tears running freely as emotions overflowed and flooded out of control. Survival instincts doling out euphoric sensations in reward for evading death and unbridled joy at each other's company after fearing the death of all their family. They mourned the passing of Kadaj and the loss of their Mother after coming so close to knowing her inexorable presence. They wept until their eyes were dry and they had no more tears to cry. They embraced each other tightly, as if they were so eager to never know loneliness ever again they wished they could crawl inside one-another's skin. Together the silver haired brothers wept until their eyes were dry and they had no more tears to cry.

It was quiet for quite some time and Yazoo almost believed Loz had fallen asleep from the emotional exhaustion.

"What are we going to do next?"

Yazoo sighed. "I don't know brother. What do you wish to do?"

"I want mother."

"As do I Loz." Yazoo reached out, trying to find his brother's cheek to bestow a gentle, calming touch of solidarity in the dark. "However, I'm not sure how we can search for her without Kadaj. Mother has never entered into my dreams in the same way as she did with Kadaj, she never told me her will firsthand."

Loz understood the sugared graveness in Yazoo's tone and he whimpered since he couldn't cry another drop, not even over the prospect of never finding Mother.

"Hush my brother. There are many more pressing obstacles in our path before we can resume our search for Mother." Yazoo spoke softly as a siren, able to seduce the most hardened ear and lull the most cynical mind into false security if he desired. He wanted to impart the severity of the situation but avoid causing his sensitive brother further turmoil and stress. "Cloud still lives. He wants to be Mother's only son and will not rest until he has made it so. He is a haunted man Loz, obsessed and insane. It's in his eyes. Cloud is possessed by Sephiroth's memory, his own personal Nightmare. He will come looking for us soon brother, his paranoia will drive him and he won't rest until he is sure we are dust."

"I'm too weak to fight him Yazoo." Loz admitted, the shame he felt was evident.

"As am I brother."he consolidated, comforting his huge, muscular brother's ego.

"Then we need to run! We're still in Midgar, Cloud is too near, he'll find us!" Lozpanicked.

"We are inside the ShinRa ruins?"

"…Yes."the muscular brothercringed, expecting admonishment for his stupidity.

"No that's good Loz, very good, it was very clever, you have been very clever. You've kept us both alive. You have saved us both." Kadaj's impatience and intolerance had only ever worsened Loz's confidence. In recent months Loz had seemed to surrender to becoming a pawn, doing precious little unless he was instructed to do so, much to Kadaj's domineering delight.

"I cast Cure. Twice." Loz puffed his chest out a little in pride,revelling those rare words of positive reinforcement and elevating Yazoo for a few moments.

"See? You're much cleverer than you think." Yazoo smiled but only to himself in the pitch blackness. "You brought us both in out of the rain and found a safe place for us to hide. You've even healed us, and you are such a reluctant mage."

"I healed you."

There was something about the way Loz said it that struck an odd chord in Yazoo. "You cast Cure twice?" He tested.

"On you."

"Both of them?" Yazoo exclaimed.

"Please don't be angry Yazoo" Loz begged "you were so hurt I thought you wouldn't make it, I didn't want to loose you brother. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't think, I only managed to cast twice…"

"But what of your own injuries?" Yazoo cut him off gently, stemming Loz's self-destructive apologetic tirade.

"I'm… I'll be alright" Loz insisted.

Yazoo remembered the duel with Cloud in the underpass, the bomb on the overpass, the fire and crashing down hard on the unyielding city streets. The struggle to catch up with Kadaj had been laborious and agonising, and Cloud's butchery had added to the broken brothers' already numerous injuries. The burning rain had been like salt in the wounds. How could Loz still be alive, let alone conscious after all that with no curative magic or a single potion? The fact that Loz had rescued them both in that state was an incredible prospect to someone as physically delicate and sensitive as Yazoo. He was lying on Loz's still beaten body, and the thought of how many of his brother's broken bones he was pressing down on turned Yazoo's stomach. He lifted himself up, trying to climb off Loz's battered torso.

Thick, strong arms tightened around Yazoo "I'll be alright Yazoo, please, please don't go, I want to be with you."

"I'm not leaving you Loz, I'm not going anywhere."

"But I want to be close to you."

"Loz…"

"I need you. Please?" His arms curled tighter.

Yazoo had no desire to worsen Loz's injuries by wriggling or pushing against his fractured chest, and neither did he want to sadden his injured brother after his heroics. He surrendered, settling back down on top of Loz. "Then you should sleep my brother, you need your rest."

"What if Cloud finds us when I'm sleeping?"

"Then I'll stay awake. I'll protect us."

Loz sniggered weakly.

"Hush you. Sleep now my brother, I shall think on how we can escape. I'll have a plan for us by morning."

"How will you know when it's morning?"

"I'll take an educated guess. Now please sleep Loz, you must rest."

Yazoo pondered in the dark and poured over thoughts and ideas. Loz tumbled into the realm of sleep swiftly, and proof of his ill-health was in the gentle snore which accompanied his melodic breathing. Yazoo's calculations weren't interrupted by the mild sound, but rather by concentrating onthinking light thoughts as he prayed his weight was causing no further damage to his stupid, foolish, heroic, selfless brother.

-o-o-O-o-o-


	4. One's Medicine Is Another's Poison

Loz led the way through the labyrinth of narrow tunnels and passages which wove between the hunks of rubble, trying to recall the route down which he had come. It was treacherously hard-going in the dark, his clumsy, blind fumblings in the doing little to prevent him from walking into steel cabling and suffering painful collisions between his head and iron girders. Yazoo's dependency on his memory for escaping this concrete hive made him anxious and brought him to making rash decisions. Brought him to making rash, _wrong_ decisions. On several occasions he admitted he was lost, stopped and retraced his steps, but Yazoo was not harsh on the matter like Kadaj would have been. Yazoo was so patient and caring and it was paying off, Loz could now see daylight ahead.

He dropped down to his hands and feet, lowering his body profile as he gingerly crept towards the bright daylight. Yazoo silently followed suit behind him and slinked stealthily into his footsteps. They paused frequently, like fearful animals emerging from the safety of their den, apprehensive and uneasy, taking time to check and double check for danger. They made painfully slow progress, easing limbs through motions which creaked their ruined leather suits as little as possible. Loz's eyes were quickly adjusting to the brightness outside and as he neared the threshold, he surveyed the world more thoroughly.

The rain had stopped, but the sky was actually still overcast despite how bright the scene seemed to his tender eyes. The concrete was dark with the water it held and the air was chilly, smelling of nothing but wetness. Most importantly, the only sounds were those of the wind and the distant city of Edge.

Loz slowly rose, then when he was satisfied, he turned and beckoned for Yazoo's company.

In the light they looked each other over, sorrow etched into their features. Yazoo's long silken hair was matted and caked with smatterings of blood, his skin did not look so much pale as unhealthily transparent and he looked so frail his frame may have been made from toothpicks.

Loz could only guess how bad he looked to his brother, and Yazoo drew up close to him, smiling stroking his upper arm affectionately. "Let us see what we can do for you. Let us find our materia."

They searched independently to widen the scope of their search but never strayed further than a few feet from one another's sides. In the gathering dusk the faint mako glow of materia bled out from inside cracks and between rocks, aiding their questing eyes. Yazoo could barely contain his joy when they found his Velvet Nightmare, scratched but still unbroken and just as deadly as ever. He lovingly caressed its embossed barrel and turned it over in his hands several times before holstering it at his hip with a deft twirl through his fingers.

They recovered some materia, but the beasts and animals that roamed the area had made off with the rest. Yazoo did not seem dismayed, they had found all they needed for his plans.

As they moved about the rubble, Loz sighted a deep, clear pool which had collected in a basin formed by a fallen, upturned, aesthetically shaped curve of architecture. His lips were cracked and dry and his thirst was great. He was dehydrated and the thought of a cool drink of water was a considerably pleasant one.

He touched the water, suspicious after the burning rain which was still uncomfortably fresh in his memory. His fingers slipped into cool, clean water.

"Yazoo!" Loz called over his shoulder to his brother, eager to share his latest find. He dipped cupped hands into the pool and lifted them to his lips.

At first it passed over his lips like water, but swiftly it began to tingle his mouth like strong alcohol. He balked at the pure-ethanol sting and then choked as if it were concentrated acid. He could not spit out the offending liquid fast enough or completely enough and the remaining film of it coating his mouth was as foul as some toxic poison. His body instinctively began wretching to rid itself of the dangerous water.

"Are you alright brother?" Yazoo placed a hand on his back.

Loz sobbed as he raked at his throbbing tongue. "I'm so thirsty Yazoo, but this water is like poison. I need to drink but I can't!"

Yazoo stroked his back. "I promise I will find you a drink before sunrise tomorrow my brother. First we need to get away from where this poison rain fell."

Loz sat patiently as Yazoo cast Regen on them both, enjoying the calming, euphoric highs that the spell brought as it bolstered their health. They rested for a while in the shelter of the ruins as the sun sank lower behind the veil of clouds.

"What are your plans?" Loz asked with vague interest. He had faith in his brother's ability to form a reliable escape plan and keep them both out of harm's way, but he was curious. His own thoughts had drawn blanks on how to best evade Strife. He also wished to hear his brother's calming voice, the open ground and dead silence was setting him on edge.

"We should set some distance between us and our foe." Yazoo's hauntingly gentle, absent-minded voice did not carry far on the wind and it sounded as quiet as a whisper to Loz's ears. Yazoo seemed preoccupied with his Velvet Nightmare, tinkering with its loading mechanism and buffing the scrapes on the hilt with the cuff of his leather coat. "We will go from here to the town of Kalm. We can dwell on the outskirts of the town where we will draw the least attention to our presence as possible. There we can obtain the items and materials we need to regain our true strength before setting out for someplace further afield."

"How are we to get through Edge?" Loz thought for a moment more. Kalm was far away for travelling on foot, and Cloud had much more at his disposal as far as transport was concerned. His airship could catch up with them in minutes and would find them all to easily out on the open, desolate wastelands past Edge. Between the wastelands and Kalm there were open grassy plains which offered just as much or even less cover. "Kalm is too far to travel to on foot."

"I wasn't suggesting we walk there." Yazoo gave a wry, cryptic smile. He holstered his gun and glanced upwards, rising to his feet. "It is dark enough now I suppose."

Loz looked on quizzically as Yazoo lifted his right arm as smoothly as a dancer assuming a new pose. He stretched his arm out and lifted his hand until his the flat of his palm faced the horizon.

Shadows streaked around them, gathering darkness and substance until they were like loose balls of black mist careering around the ruins. Suddenly the creeping shadows burst open to reveal grey beasts which leapt into bloodthirsty gallops, searching for the prey they had been summoned to claim.

Shadow Creepers. Skeletal monsters which existed between The Planet and The Lifestream, ghastly, ghostly life forms which dwelled in limbo unless drawn through into the physical world. They were creatures of chaos and destruction, which obeyed Jenova's children only for the sake of their shared desire to 'strike back at The Planet' which held them in their desolate domain of the dead. They were formidable demons, equipped with strong, toothy jaws and long hooked claws. Even their bodies were bedecked with great horny blades.

"I was suggesting we ride." Yazoo concluded the spectacular presentation of his plan.

Loz looked uncertainly at the restless Creepers. They gnashed their teeth and salivated as they wildly thrashed their long, whip-like tails and pawed impatiently at the ground. "Ride a Shadow Creeper?"

"We do not have many options brother. I'm sure they can be persuaded to act as suitable mounts." Yazoo reached out to touch the flank of one which had come to an agitated halt next to him, but quickly retracted his extremities when the beast whipped round with its fangs bared.

Loz advanced on the snappy, untame creature which had lunged at Yazoo's tentative attempt to touch it. He stood upright and took determined, dominative steps towards it. The Creeper snarled in confusion, usually they were summoned to run free and draw blood, not as alternatives for docile riding chocobos. Loz reached out for its head, moving slowly but smoothly but the Creeper made an open-mouthed lunge at his hand, hissing and spitting with rage at having its usual routine broken. Rather than whipping his hand away at the Creeper's challenge, Loz cuffed the beast's snout and grabbed hold of one of its horns. For a while it spat and growled, but it soon succumbed to Loz's will, standing still and not writhing to escape his hold.

"You might be right brother." Loz said, walking forwards whilst keeping his full attention on the Creeper, which took a few uncertain steps to match. "Well, here you go."

Loz passed the Creeper's horn to Yazoo's hand.

Yazoo paused and then mounted the Shadow Creeper's back in one fluid motion. Instantly the beast let out a shrill roar and rose up on its hind legs, lashing out at thin air with its massive claws. It tore into a top-speed run, leaping and bucking. Loz looked on watchfully, worrying for his brother's safety but relieved that Yazoo was beginning to rein the Creeper in and bring it at least partially under control.

"This is so exhilarating! Far superior to motorbikes or chocobos!" Yazoo called out, a thrill seeker's grin on his face as the Creeper leapt among the rubble.

Loz collared himself a Creeper for his own steed and joined his brother. They careered through the ruins with the pack of Shadow Creepers leaping, turning and baying their bloodcurdling screams around them, getting a feel for their carnivorous mounts before Yazoo struck out on a new direction, steering northeast towards the city of Edge, the wastelands, the grassy plains and beyond to the peaceful, sleepy town of Kalm.


End file.
